The Christmas Rose Promise — The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

A gentleman's carriage comes round the corner while Gilbert stands absorbed. He would not have remembered it if a tiny voice had not cried that Mr Markham is there. Helen's tremulous greeting to her aunt and her order to stop Richard betray joy she is trying to suppress. A gloved hand comes from the window; he presses it and drops it. He says he came to see the place. Arthur, seven and grown, runs him up the park. In the apartment Aunt Maxwell discusses weather and roads while Helen stands by the fire, fingers restless on her watch-chain. She asks whether anybody at Lindenhope is dead, married, or expecting to marry, whether old ties are dissolved or old friends forgotten. He answers that others are as little changed as he. When she hears he did not mean to call, she charges him, before her aunt, with over-modesty: this man is her brother's close friend and her boy's attached acquaintance, yet he declines to look in for fear of intruding.

Sent to fetch a book, Arthur leaves them. Helen asks why Gilbert is so changed. He confesses he came to see her, then learned from fellow passengers that the estate was hers, and resolved not to enter, thinking an interview would only disturb her peace. She asks why he never wrote. He did not know her address and dared not ask Lawrence, and her silence seemed to mean she had forgotten him. She had asked about him frequently; Lawrence never said so. Pride almost carries Gilbert to the door. She will not let him go before Arthur returns, and she will not let him call her Mrs Huntingdon while he claims the same regard as before.

She plucks a half-blown Christmas rose from the snow outside the window, an emblem of a heart that has stood hardships summer flowers could not bear, and asks if he will have it. His hesitation looks like reluctance. She snatches it, throws it out, and shuts the window. He leaps after it, brings it back, and begs to keep it. The rose was her heart: would he take it away and leave her there alone? He asks for her hand; she has said enough. They agree she must not tell her aunt yet. He will come again in spring and stay longer. She will not marry in December, the month of her first wedding and of Huntingdon's death. The close of summer will do. Daily letters will fill the wait. Staningley shall remain her aunt's home, and theirs if Helen wishes it. Arthur returns with the natural history book; Gilbert draws the boy between his knees and kisses his forehead: he is Helen's son, and therefore his own.

Eight months and all Helen's kindness are needed to overcome Mrs Markham's prejudices against a bride who will take her son so far from Linden Grange. Fergus receives the farm, newly in love and newly industrious. Aunt Maxwell, once she knows Gilbert, would rather Helen had remained single, yet knows no one living to whom she would more willingly resign her. Gilbert's letter to Halford, dated Staningley, 10 June 1847, reports a happy marriage, young Arthur thriving at Grassdale with his own wife, and an invitation for Halford and Rose to leave city smoke for a season of quiet with them.